I don't know anything about Java personally, but I know for a fact the best IDE is Eclipse, it's open-source and very extendable. If it means anything to you, Markus Persson, the developer of Minecraft (Notch) uses it.

I don't know anything about Java personally, but I know for a fact the best IDE is Eclipse, it's open-source and very extendable. If it means anything to you, Markus Persson, the developer of Minecraft (Notch) uses it.

I agree with Eclipse it's a great IDE but can be a bit overwhelming for a beginner with all the different settings, if you just want to write a small bit of Java code which you will be doing at first I suggest you try something like DrJava which is basically a text editor designed specifically for Java.http://www.drjava.org/

I agree with Eclipse it's a great IDE but can be a bit overwhelming for a beginner with all the different settings, if you just want to write a small bit of Java code which you will be doing at first I suggest you try something like DrJava which is basically a text editor designed specifically for Java.http://www.drjava.org/

uh, the settings in Eclipse aren't confusing at all. Even for a complete beginner.

I think I would rather eat my own testicles than use Eclipse, but sadly life forces it on me again and again, so I suppose I'm starting to acquire a taste for my own balls...

If you are learning Java, do yourself a favor and use something else. Anything else. Fuck, morse code would be a more pleasant experience! By anything else, I mean NetBeans. Or IntelliJ IDEA. Just not Eclipse, not at least until you have to.

The Java section of my beginners guide is geared towards game programmers ( as that seems to be why everyone wants to learn how to program... :) ), but it has links to the various IDEs, as well as some tutorials and free ( and not free ) books to get you started. The fact it's geared towards gaming means little, as frankly, you need to learn how to program before you can program games, so the recommendations are pretty much the same, just ignore all the bits about gaming libraries and such...

I think I would rather eat my own testicles than use Eclipse, but sadly life forces it on me again and again, so I suppose I'm starting to acquire a taste for my own balls...

If you are learning Java, do yourself a favor and use something else. Anything else. Fuck, morse code would be a more pleasant experience! By anything else, I mean NetBeans. Or IntelliJ IDEA. Just not Eclipse, not at least until you have to.

The Java section of my beginners guide is geared towards game programmers ( as that seems to be why everyone wants to learn how to program... :) ), but it has links to the various IDEs, as well as some tutorials and free ( and not free ) books to get you started. The fact it's geared towards gaming means little, as frankly, you need to learn how to program before you can program games, so the recommendations are pretty much the same, just ignore all the bits about gaming libraries and such...

Could you please name a few reasons for your dislike of Eclipse?

Your statement is meaningless without any reasons or examples to support it.

Your statement is meaningless without any reasons or examples to support it.

More than anything, it is convoluted as hell, non-intuitive, and thus a serious time sync to learn. On top of that, it is horrifically cluttered and frankly, rather slow. On my i7 12 GB machine it is passable ( it just took 23 seconds to load ), but on my ultraportable i3, its downright sluggish, taking minutes to load.

But more than that, it's tools corrupt constantly, especially plugins ( which are the reasons I have been forced to use Eclipse in the first place, Android and GAE all but dictate it ). The more plugins you add, the less reliable and more unstable it becomes. This may sound like a no-brainer, but when the biggest selling point of Eclipse is the plugin architecture, this is a serious flaw. Especially when NetBeans seems to manage plugins without degrading performance.

But more than anything else in the world. the IDE gets in my way. I've experienced bugs will developing Android applications that were actually caused by Eclipse. This should NEVER EVER EVER happen. The number of times I have had to run Eclipse --clean, because my Android project would no longer build, it's easily double, pushing triple digits. As a collorary, I have had to devenv /resetsettings ( Visual Studios equivalent to Eclipse /clean ) exactly 4 times in my life, even though I use Visual Studio a ton more than Eclipse.

So, in summary, its slow, over engineered, difficult to learn, fragile and for me, downright irritating.

More than anything, it is convoluted as hell, non-intuitive, and thus a serious time sync to learn. On top of that, it is horrifically cluttered and frankly, rather slow. On my i7 12 GB machine it is passable ( it just took 23 seconds to load ), but on my ultraportable i3, its downright sluggish, taking minutes to load.

But more than that, it's tools corrupt constantly, especially plugins ( which are the reasons I have been forced to use Eclipse in the first place, Android and GAE all but dictate it ). The more plugins you add, the less reliable and more unstable it becomes. This may sound like a no-brainer, but when the biggest selling point of Eclipse is the plugin architecture, this is a serious flaw. Especially when NetBeans seems to manage plugins without degrading performance.

But more than anything else in the world. the IDE gets in my way. I've experienced bugs will developing Android applications that were actually caused by Eclipse. This should NEVER EVER EVER happen. The number of times I have had to run Eclipse --clean, because my Android project would no longer build, it's easily double, pushing triple digits. As a collorary, I have had to devenv /resetsettings ( Visual Studios equivalent to Eclipse /clean ) exactly 4 times in my life, even though I use Visual Studio a ton more than Eclipse.

So, in summary, its slow, over engineered, difficult to learn, fragile and for me, downright irritating.

I knew how to use Eclipse the first time I opened it.
It only takes ~10 seconds to open for me.
Your 12GB machine? What?
Minutes to load? I've ran eclipse on a horrible machine before and it still took ~10 seconds.
The tools never "corrupted" for me before. Plus you shouldn't be adding a million plugins to it, of course that will slow it down. All my android projects work perfectly fine in Eclipse.
Eclipse can also be customized so its not "bulky"(which it really isn't) and has a million things as a secret that I find fun to figure out on my own, its like its own adventure game.

I knew how to use Eclipse the first time I opened it.
It only takes ~10 seconds to open for me.
Your 12GB machine? What?
Minutes to load? I've ran eclipse on a horrible machine before and it still took ~10 seconds.
The tools never "corrupted" for me before. Plus you shouldn't be adding a million plugins to it, of course that will slow it down. All my android projects work perfectly fine in Eclipse.
Eclipse can also be customized so its not "bulky"(which it really isn't) and has a million things as a secret that I find fun to figure out on my own, its like its own adventure game.

Then you appear to have magical abilities; or you are full of shit. :) There is no way in hell anyone knew how to use Eclipse instantly, no friggin way. Now you may have opened it and successfully managed to create then run a Java application, but anything beyond the most basic actions requires a pretty steep learning curve. Even Visual Studio Express editions, which are far more streamlined than Eclipse, require several hours to get up to speed.

Apparently too, you have a much more powerful machine than I. Im not sure what you dont get about 12GB... i7 12GB, I figured pretty much everyone reading this forum would easily comprehend that, but I guess I can get away with short hand on this one. i7 processor, with 12 GB of ram, the two resources that most determine Eclipse's performance. And yes, on my i3 machine ( 4GB... er, I mean, with 4 gigs of RAM ), it takes about 2 minutes to start Eclipse ( Indigo ). For the record though, that includes opening the default workspace.

I am not adding a million plugins. I generally download the "classic" edition, install the Android tools and various google plugins required for Android development and frankly thats about it. My current eclipse install has exactly enough to run PlayN code ( Android sdk, Maven support, Google App Engine plugins ). Perhaps it's the Google related stuff that makes my experiences such shit, as frankly those are generally the only things I have ever used Eclipse for. ( Google App Engine, PlayN and Android all basically require you use Android/Maven(and/or)Ant )

In the land of Superfetch, this really ins't as true as it was. Regardless, its a 7200rpm drive if that really matters.

----------------------------------------------

EDIT:

I suppose I should throw a caveat out there. Eclipse isn't unusable, nor is it some kind of rube goldberg machine thats designed to melt your brain. It obviously is a productive environment, or nobody would use it. My first exposure to Eclipse was after over a decade of experience with a number of various IDEs professionally, across a number of languages... and yes, I picked it up, eventually. I was even productive in it ( hell, at the time, the refactoring tools where unparalleled ), although like I said, working on Android code really did make me hate life, and I really did have my projects corrupts almost constantly requiring /clean runs of the environment, installing my hate in the IDE. I still use it on occasion though, including earlier this morning to write some NodeJS code, for which it seems to currently be the best IDE option... But it is an IDE that gets in your way, is complex and certainly is NOT what you should recommend to someone currently learning to program in Java. At least, not IMHO.

EDIT2:

It may be possible it's Google that has inspired my intense hatred of Eclipse, as its always on Google products ( App Engine, Android, PlayN, Dart ) that seem to force me to use Eclipse. It's possible that it's Googles additions to Eclipse that turn it into a hateful piece of crap.

It isn't magic. I opened it and I taught myself pretty quickly. It isn't complex, and plenty of new java developers use it. NetBeans is what I consider bulky. It isn't customizable enough for me, plus it was made as a result of Sun/Oracle getting mad at eclipse for beating them to the race(iirc)

More than anything, it is convoluted as hell, non-intuitive, and thus a serious time sync to learn. On top of that, it is horrifically cluttered and frankly, rather slow. On my i7 12 GB machine it is passable ( it just took 23 seconds to load ), but on my ultraportable i3, its downright sluggish, taking minutes to load.

But more than that, it's tools corrupt constantly, especially plugins ( which are the reasons I have been forced to use Eclipse in the first place, Android and GAE all but dictate it ). The more plugins you add, the less reliable and more unstable it becomes. This may sound like a no-brainer, but when the biggest selling point of Eclipse is the plugin architecture, this is a serious flaw. Especially when NetBeans seems to manage plugins without degrading performance.

But more than anything else in the world. the IDE gets in my way. I've experienced bugs will developing Android applications that were actually caused by Eclipse. This should NEVER EVER EVER happen. The number of times I have had to run Eclipse --clean, because my Android project would no longer build, it's easily double, pushing triple digits. As a collorary, I have had to devenv /resetsettings ( Visual Studios equivalent to Eclipse /clean ) exactly 4 times in my life, even though I use Visual Studio a ton more than Eclipse.

So, in summary, its slow, over engineered, difficult to learn, fragile and for me, downright irritating.

Then you appear to have magical abilities; or you are full of shit. :) There is no way in hell anyone knew how to use Eclipse instantly, no friggin way. Now you may have opened it and successfully managed to create then run a Java application, but anything beyond the most basic actions requires a pretty steep learning curve. Even Visual Studio Express editions, which are far more streamlined than Eclipse, require several hours to get up to speed.

Apparently too, you have a much more powerful machine than I. Im not sure what you dont get about 12GB... i7 12GB, I figured pretty much everyone reading this forum would easily comprehend that, but I guess I can get away with short hand on this one. i7 processor, with 12 GB of ram, the two resources that most determine Eclipse's performance. And yes, on my i3 machine ( 4GB... er, I mean, with 4 gigs of RAM ), it takes about 2 minutes to start Eclipse ( Indigo ). For the record though, that includes opening the default workspace.

I am not adding a million plugins. I generally download the "classic" edition, install the Android tools and various google plugins required for Android development and frankly thats about it. My current eclipse install has exactly enough to run PlayN code ( Android sdk, Maven support, Google App Engine plugins ). Perhaps it's the Google related stuff that makes my experiences such shit, as frankly those are generally the only things I have ever used Eclipse for. ( Google App Engine, PlayN and Android all basically require you use Android/Maven(and/or)Ant )

Edited:

Well, it is a laptop... that I purchased a month ago, so no upgrades in my near future unfortunately. :)

Edited:

In the land of Superfetch, this really ins't as true as it was. Regardless, its a 7200rpm drive if that really matters.

----------------------------------------------

EDIT:

I suppose I should throw a caveat out there. Eclipse isn't unusable, nor is it some kind of rube goldberg machine thats designed to melt your brain. It obviously is a productive environment, or nobody would use it. My first exposure to Eclipse was after over a decade of experience with a number of various IDEs professionally, across a number of languages... and yes, I picked it up, eventually. I was even productive in it ( hell, at the time, the refactoring tools where unparalleled ), although like I said, working on Android code really did make me hate life, and I really did have my projects corrupts almost constantly requiring /clean runs of the environment, installing my hate in the IDE. I still use it on occasion though, including earlier this morning to write some NodeJS code, for which it seems to currently be the best IDE option... But it is an IDE that gets in your way, is complex and certainly is NOT what you should recommend to someone currently learning to program in Java. At least, not IMHO.

EDIT2:

It may be possible it's Google that has inspired my intense hatred of Eclipse, as its always on Google products ( App Engine, Android, PlayN, Dart ) that seem to force me to use Eclipse. It's possible that it's Googles additions to Eclipse that turn it into a hateful piece of crap.

jesus christ, what?

There is something very, very wrong with your computer(s). Either that or you're making this up, because this simply isn't true at all.

Seriously though, if anybody else intrested in learning java is looking at this thread I found this channel yesturday, I normally hate video guides but these are very well done and have a good learning curve.

There is something very, very wrong with your computer(s). Either that or you're making this up, because this simply isn't true at all.

IF there is something wrong with my computer, it's only with Eclipse...

I said: On my i7 12 GB machine it is passable ( it just took 23 seconds to load ), but on my ultraportable i3, its downright sluggish, taking minutes to load.

This video shows Eclipse loading after a fresh reboot. It took about 3 seconds for me to open the start menu and click Eclipse, then perhaps a second to click "OK" on loading the workspace, and the video is 29 seconds in length.

So... that works out to about... hmmmm... 23 seconds, exactly what I said.

Because if you load Eclipse frequently, and have loaded it once since booting, Superfetch will take effect. If I load Eclipse after a boot, its 23 seconds. If I close it and immediately reopen it, its around 12 seconds. This is what Superfetch does.

That said, SSD does make a huge difference. Probably not so much from loading applications, but from having your OS partition on the SSD, which I assume you have. I would like to get a SSD installed in the future, but the price is still a bit too steep.

Because if you load Eclipse frequently, and have loaded it once since booting, Superfetch will take effect. If I load Eclipse after a boot, its 23 seconds. If I close it and immediately reopen it, its around 12 seconds. This is what Superfetch does.

That said, SSD does make a huge difference. Probably not so much from loading applications, but from having your OS partition on the SSD, which I assume you have. I would like to get a SSD installed in the future, but the price is still a bit too steep.

My friend uses it on his 512mb ram samsung netbook (god knows what processor he has, think it's an old old atom, the netbook itself is about 2 years old now), it loads in like 10 seconds and is never sluggish in usage. You're doing something wrong.

My friend uses it on his 512mb ram samsung netbook (god knows what processor he has, think it's an old old atom, the netbook itself is about 2 years old now), it loads in like 10 seconds and is never sluggish in usage. You're doing something wrong.

Eclipse loading on an Atom netbook in 10 seconds? Bullshit.

Hell, so far I'm the only one that's posted anything more than anecdotal evidence, no matter how many people called bullshit on me. So Im doing the same for you, post a video of this netbook loading Eclipse in less than 10 seconds and I will eat crow...

Because if you load Eclipse frequently, and have loaded it once since booting, Superfetch will take effect. If I load Eclipse after a boot, its 23 seconds. If I close it and immediately reopen it, its around 12 seconds. This is what Superfetch does.

That said, SSD does make a huge difference. Probably not so much from loading applications, but from having your OS partition on the SSD, which I assume you have. I would like to get a SSD installed in the future, but the price is still a bit too steep.

You bought a high-end gaming-tier laptop and yet £80 for an SSD is too much? Huh.

Also, I tested again for you and opening eclipse took me less time from POST than it's taking you, 5 seconds from when I first saw my desktop.

Hell, so far I'm the only one that's posted anything more than anecdotal evidence, no matter how many people called bullshit on me. So Im doing the same for you, post a video of this netbook loading Eclipse in less than 10 seconds and I will eat crow...

Ya, so now 7 people are telling you that you are wrong, all claiming Eclipse is just fine. Must just be us.

Eclipse starts up in less than 10 seconds for me. HDD's btw are 2 5 year old 250GB drives in RAID0 (7200RPM)...

I think they're disagreeing because they don't have the same problem. On my school machine, which uses Deep Freeze (hate the shit out of it) it takes a while to boot, but so does every other IDE I run. On my home machine, which is an AMD Phenom II Quad 955 with 4GB of ram, I get approximately 10 second load time, with Steam and Teamspeak running in the background. Only difference I can think of is I am running 32bit versions at both locations and you're probably running 64.

Its because it has to check whether or not a workspace is selected and prepare the resources to ask you to select a workspace, etc. Check the "Use this as default and dont ask again" checkbox and ask again

Hell, so far I'm the only one that's posted anything more than anecdotal evidence, no matter how many people called bullshit on me. So Im doing the same for you, post a video of this netbook loading Eclipse in less than 10 seconds and I will eat crow...

On my old Pentium 4 3.2Ghz, IDE HDD's, 2 GB DDR2 Ram it took me around 20 seconds to load up,
On my ex's Atom 256MB ram I got Eclipse to load up in 20 seconds,
On my best friends I5 2500K 3.6Ghz, 8GB Ram it takes him 20 seconds to load,
On my brothers I7 2600 1.6Ghz, 6GB ram it takes him around 20 seconds,
On my other brothers AMD+ or whatever 2gb ram it takes him around 20 seconds to load it.

By the way I figured out how to use Eclipse like I did for Netbeans and Microsoft Visual Studio's without needing someone to guide me :)

I use vim.
It loads in a fraction of the time it takes Eclipse or Netbeans on any of your "gaming rigs" on any piece of crap Linux box.
E.g. a 486 could load vim faster than your i7 with 12gb of RAM and an SSD could load eclipse.

I use vim.
It loads in a fraction of the time it takes Eclipse or Netbeans on any of your "gaming rigs" on any piece of crap Linux box.
E.g. a 486 could load vim faster than your i7 with 12gb of RAM and an SSD could load eclipse.

Wow! That's great for those flashes of inspiration that last for only 15 seconds!